Happy ending to ‘missing mom’ drama

CONSTANT cellphone communication with her daughter led missing 67year-old Thembeka Zwelinjani back to the safety of her family after she got lost in bush 20km outside East London last weekend.

She disappeared on Friday afternoon in Nxarhuni and was found unharmed in the early hours of Saturday.

Zwelinjani, who lives in Cuba location in Nxarhuni, is mentally impaired and suffers from epilepsy.

She got lost in dense bush late in the afternoon on her way to a relative’s house not far from home.

Her daughter, Nomawethu Zwelinjani, who lives with her, said she was not at home when her mother took off.

“I started calling her on her cellphone at around 5.30pm, and she told me that while she was walking she lost her purse and as she looked for it, she wandered from the pathway and couldn’t find her way back to it.

She couldn’t explain her whereabouts because she didn’t know where she was.”

Nomawethu said they began the search while maintaining constant cellphone communication with her.

At 9pm they reported her missing at Vulindlela police station in NU12 in Mdantsane.

An intense search began, which went on until 3am.

Nomawethu and the police kept speaking to her on her phone throughout the search.

“At 3am she said we should just leave her because it was pointless to keep looking in the dark,” Nomawethu said.

Zwelinjani was found at 5am the following morning about 5km from home.

Her clothes were torn and she was distressed, but not injured.

“Finding her made me so happy because I was starting to lose hope.

“Talking to her on the phone encouraged me that we’d find her though.”

Zwelinjani is now back home and is well, her daughter said.

SAPS captain Siphokazi Mawisa was unable to give comment on the search because she had “no information on the matter”, she said. —